Many thanks to the BC Arts Council’s Project Assistance for Creative Writers program for the very welcome news Jan. 12 that I have received support for February through June 2017 for my latest writing project. I’m also grateful for this honour to Walter Quan, who administers the program with considerable aplomb, and to this year’s jury.

Underway at the moment is a novel about “hippie labour” crews employed at urban renewal in the Gastown area of Vancouver in 1970. I’ve wanted for years to foreground the work experience in a longer fictional creation. My discovery of a cache of materials related to my own employment on a construction/demolition crew in Gastown in 1970 has provided both the impetus to shift this writing project into high gear, and invaluable reminders of the texture of the job and the era.

I look forward to five months of concentration on this writing task, and appreciate very much the vote of confidence in the project that this grant represents!